


a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Shoot the Hostage, Whump, Whumptober 2020, some fluff some whump you know the vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: whumptober day 16 - prompt: shoot the hostage.Eddie feels the barrel of the gun shake where it’s pressing up against the back of his head. “Just let me go,” the man holding it is saying. “Let me go and I swear I won’t hurt him.”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 264
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

**Author's Note:**

> hey!!! what's up look at me posting this fic way earlier in the day than i normally do lol. anyway this is not as whumpy as my usual fics but this is just where it took me. i hope you enjoy!!

Eddie feels the barrel of the gun shake where it’s pressing up against the back of his head. “Just let me go,” the man holding it is saying. “Let me go and I swear I won’t hurt him.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Bobby says, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender. “I need you to let him come back over here.”

“No,  _ no, _ you’ll just try to stop me. Let me go and I’ll let  _ him  _ go as soon as I’m far enough away.”

This doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world to Eddie. Better that he doesn’t get shot, is his thinking. If that means being pushed around by this guy and eventually left on the side of the road someplace, that’s fine. Much better than somebody trying to be a hero (he glances at Buck, wishing the other man could read his mind, for the first time ever) and ending up with casualties.

But Bobby doesn’t see it that way. “That won’t work,” he insists. “The police are on their way. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. But you have a choice. You can let Eddie go, and only face the charges for robbery, or you can face charges for robbery  _ and  _ for taking a hostage.”

The gun presses harder into the back of Eddie’s head. He tries not to flinch away, tries not to think of the  _ click  _ he’d heard when it’d first been put into its current position, tries not to imagine the bullet firing, tries not to imagine dying…

“You’re arresting me either way,” the man says. “What do I care what it’s for?”

Eddie watches Bobby shake his head, then turn to look at Buck. Some kind of silent communication passes between the two of them. What it is exactly, Eddie can’t tell. 

And then Buck looks at him, and,  _ shit, _ Eddie  _ really  _ doesn’t need to be looked at by him right now. Not when he’s trying to focus on not getting shot.

Buck mouths something at him, which looks like “almost here.” Eddie breathes a sigh of relief. The police will arrive soon, and arrest this guy, and then he will be fine. Everything just needs to stay as it is for a few more minutes.

Of course, it doesn’t. Bobby takes a step forward, and the man says, “I’ll shoot him if you take another step, I swear I will.” Bobby takes the man for his word, and Eddie briefly loses track of everything happening around him as his heart pounds in his chest, harder than he thinks it’s ever beaten before. 

_ That was close, that was way too close, _ he thinks, and he feels his hands start to shake. He’s been aware of the danger he’s in since it began, but it’s only now sinking in how very  _ close  _ he is to dying. He thinks of Christopher and his parents and his siblings and abuela and Buck, and he feels tears start to spill down his cheeks but doesn’t dare bring up a hand to wipe them away. 

And then, faintly, he hears a siren, and then there is a police car coming closer and closer, and he’s spun around as his captor whirls to face the police cars. 

“Tell them to stop!” he shouts. “I’ll shoot him, I swear!”

Eddie’s just about to do something, make a break for it, fling himself away, and then the man does it for him, shoving him away and to the ground. Eddie spins around involuntarily, stumbling backwards and hitting the dirt hard. He coughs, and then there’s a bang and something hits him and for a second he’s just lying there, ears ringing, confused, and then the pain starts. 

It’s hot and horrible and he can feel his blood pouring out of him, soaking into his clothes and into the ground, and there are noises all around him that he’s not paying attention to, and he’s not screaming but he wishes he was. He’s crying instead, silently, and staring straight up into the sky,  _ feeling  _ himself bleed out. He thinks again of Christopher and tries to reach for his medallion, but his hands are refusing to cooperate and all he can think is  _ not now, not like this, please, no, _ and then there is a hand in his pocket and he forces his watering eyes to focus. 

_ Buck. _

The medallion is pressed into his hand, and then his other hand is being grabbed by Buck, and then something presses into his stomach and it hurts but the only noise he makes is a soft groan of pain, and then someone is picking him up and he knows this, feels the material of a stretcher underneath him and sees the familiar setting of the back of the ambulance.

He hears the doors slam and feels the ambulance start to move, and he knows there are others back here but the only person he can focus on is  _ Buck, _ who is  _ holding his hand,  _ an act which ordinarily might’ve managed to turn his cheeks pink, were quite a lot of his blood not currently outside of his body.

Buck is saying something to him, something he can’t quite hear, but the look on his face is almost as painful as the gunshot wound, and Eddie uses the meager amount of strength he has left to squeeze Buck’s hand and choke out a hoarse, “Buck.”

Buck immediately stops saying whatever it was he’d been saying. “Yeah, Eddie?”

“‘M dying,” he says. “Right?” He thinks he is. He’s been close enough before to know what it feels like. He feels his St. Christopher medallion digging into the skin of the hand not currently holding onto Buck for dear life, and wishes desperately to see his son one last time. “I can’t die,” he says, and then he coughs and tastes blood on his lips and he knows that that’s  _ bad. _

“You’re not  _ going  _ to die,” Buck says, and this time Eddie  _ can  _ hear him. He looks like maybe he’s crying, too, which is nice, Eddie thinks. He doesn’t have to cry alone. 

He feels the edges of unconsciousness settle in, hears someone else tell him to hold on, but he  _ can’t, _ and he gives Buck’s hand another squeeze and whispers, “I love you,” and then everything goes black.

\--

He wakes up slowly, blinking as the world comes into fuzzy focus. Machines are beeping around him, and there’s the familiar smell of antiseptic in the air. 

He’d been shot, he remembers, and he reaches a hand down to touch his stomach, finding a layer of bandaging that doesn’t hurt much when he touches it.  _ That’s a nice change, _ he thinks, drowsily. 

He then gives his surroundings a brief once-over. A table to his right. A couple machines beside it. A duffle bag next to the door. A chair to his left, with Buck curled up awkwardly in it, breathing deeply. More machines.

_ Buck. _

“Buck,” he says, wincing when the action of speaking makes his throat burn. He coughs and tries again. “Buck.”

Buck jolts awake, looking around frantically, before his eyes land on Eddie. His face breaks into a grin which Eddie can’t help but return.

“How do you feel?” he asks, and for once, Eddie is completely honest when he says he feels fine. 

“Where’s Chris?” he asks.

“He’s at home, Eddie. It’s four in the morning. He was here earlier, but you were asleep.”

“Oh,” Eddie says. “I was out for a while, then,” he concludes. It had been daylight when he’d gotten shot.

A pained look crosses Buck’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “You were. You scared us, Eddie. You scared me.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to say to that. He hadn’t meant to scare anyone. He hadn’t meant to get shot. “I’m sorry,” he says, and Buck reaches out, putting a hand on his arm. 

Eddie feels his heart skip a beat (and then looks at the screen of the monitor, which assures him that it hasn’t  _ actually  _ done that).  _ Focus _ , he thinks to himself.  _ Buck doesn’t need to deal with any of your feelings right now. _

“Just don’t do it again,” Buck says, and he’s smiling now, and  _ god, _ Eddie never wants him to stop. 

“I love you,” he says, the words slipping from his mouth before he can stop them. He half closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Buck’s response.

“I know,” Buck says. “I love you, too.”

“I’m s-” Eddie says, before the meaning of what Buck’s said hits him. “What?”

Buck raises an eyebrow. “I love you, too, Eddie.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to focus on first - the fact that Buck loves him, too, comes to mind, but then, so does Buck’s statement of  _ I know. _ Had he been  _ that  _ obvious?

He asks, figuring there’s no harm it can do.

Buck looks at him confusedly for a second, and then he laughs. “You don’t remember, do you?” he asks, putting a hand to Eddie’s cheek. “You told me already, after you got shot.” That pained look ghosts across his face again, and Eddie hates it, hates that he’s the reason it’s there. So he does the only reasonable thing. He pulls Buck closer to him, nearly making him trip and fall into one of the machines, and then he kisses him, softly and gently. 

It’s over in a matter of seconds, but they both pull back breathless. They stare at each other for a second, and Eddie nearly melts at the look of pure love on Buck’s face, a look he knows is sitting on his own face, too. 

“Can’t believe it took me getting shot for me to finally get to kiss you,” Eddie says, leaning his face into Buck’s shoulder. “It was worth it, though,” he adds. 

“Just  _ don’t do it again,” _ Buck warns, for the second time. 

“As long as you keep kissing me,” Eddie agrees.

“I wasn’t planning on stopping.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading this! as a brief side note i am aware the hospital would usually kick buck out bc he can't be there at four am but i like to think buck could convince them to let him stay. anywho i hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think!!!


End file.
